What the heck is gamed?

The gamed demon works with the Game Kit framework to support these protocols:

• GKAchievementViewControllerDelegate
• GKChallengeEventHandlerDelegate
• GKChallengeListener
• GKFriendRequestComposeViewControllerDelegate
• GKGameCenterControllerDelegate
• GKInviteEventListener
• GKLeaderboardViewControllerDelegate
• GKLocalPlayerListener
• GKMatchDelegate
• GKMatchmakerViewControllerDelegate
• GKPeerPickerControllerDelegate
• GKSessionDelegate
• GKTurnBasedEventHandlerDelegate
• GKTurnBasedEventListener
• GKTurnBasedMatchmakerViewControllerDelegate
• GKVoiceChatClient

If you're monitoring network activity using Little Snitch, though, it's very annoying because it continually generates network traffic, whether you are using Game Center or not -- and it won't take no for an answer.

You can prevent gamed from running by logging in as an administrative user, running the Terminal application, and typing (or copying and pasting) at the prompt:

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.gamed Disabled -bool true

After restarting your computer, gamed will not be running and the Little Snitch network monitor won't be flashing.

To reverse the change, you can type:

sudo defaults delete /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.gamed Disabled

Regarding "GAMED"
I assume most people there have the problem with GAMED from the game.center are using Little Snitch (which in my eyes is a fantastic program)
I solved the problem by unlocking the rules, and the changing one of the rules under "gamed" to "deny any outgoing connection" and then deleting all other rules under "gamed"
remember you can not just make a new rule, to get the path right, just edit one of the rules in "gamed" and delete the rest of that section.

Disabling gamed like this returns no output (unless an error occurs):

$ launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.gamed.plist

$

i.e. It stopped without no error

Should you do the same thing again, it cannot be unloaded as the service is no longer running:

$ launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.gamed.plist

$ /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.gamed.plist: Could not find specified service

... you've probably already shut it down, or someone has.

Loading the gamed service just executes without response too:

$ launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.gamed.plist

$

And similarly, doing it twice tells us we're insanely expecting a different result from the same action:

$ launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.gamed.plist

$ /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.gamed.plist: service already loaded

Continues to works for me in El Capitan. But given that each version of OS-X and iOS are getting more and more polluted by mandatory services that actively connect without the knowledge of the user, and that iOS-specific commands/errors are in the man pages everywhere, someone is approving the dogs to be off leash on the permanent 'connectification' of every users' bits and dots. Why not make a big thing of 'disabling game functions'- let alone build services that work just as well configured with or without cloud and social connectivity? Supporting users to use the market differentiating aspects of OSX seems more sensible than forcefully 'productising' users and user data. /rant

I don't know myself, but I found this extra post which may help.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5497151?answerId=23567732022#23567732022

Good Luck!! 🙂

Correct, because El Capitan has "System Integrity Protection" which prevents even root from modifying system files.

You could run "csrutil disable" from within a terminal in recovery mode to disable it, reboot, then you can run the above commands, then "csrutil enable" from within a terminal in recovery mode to re-enable it.

Question for kph:

Regarding your tip to prevent gamed from unwanted network traffic, it seems to work but just in case I want to revert back I'd like to know how to reverse the command 'launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.gamed.plist'.

:: kpf

I am running El Capitan and I got this message below.

-bash: launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.gamed.plist: No such file or directory

thoughts? I checked and the directory is there.

This keeps on working, even in El Capitan:

'launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.gamed.plist'

No more gamed-activity traceable!

Looks like this no longer worked with 10.11 El Capitan (beta)?

Just seconding muximus request: what do we do if we need to use Game Centre, and so turn this thing back on?

Thanks

'launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.gamed.plist' has the reverse effect

Thanks, :: kpf! Tried it in my admin account (I was thrown off course by the answer marked as solved) but running it in my user account worked like a charm.